The Wikipedia Conspiracy.

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The Wikipedia Conspiracy.

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 The collective hive mind Wikipedia has been accomplishing what publishers and historians have been doing for years: gathering the sum of human knowledge into one single entity. A convenient total of all of human progress and achievement. The encyclopedia is quite the achievement. Scientists, teachers, and experts joining together and generating what the un-skilled and common people can refer to. And we, as the un-skilled masses assume is correct and without error. It is fact. We people assume it is fact because we assume the “experts” know what they are talking about. Wikipedia runs along the same line as an encyclopedia, but instead of experts fusing their alleged expertise, Wikipedia is user generated content. In the Free Encyclopedia, the un-skilled and common people are the masters of their own domain. Any individual with internet access can add information, regardless of its legitimacy, and edit or delete content. It is the democro-ization of information that has given the wildly popular online encyclopedia such success. Because of its “ignore all rules” approach to information, some conspiracy theorists claim Wikipedia and its creator Jimmy Wales are attempting to control reality and shape public opinion. Many claim because of Wikipedia’s systematic bias in coverage, they powers of administrators, and its alleged “neutral points of view” heighten Wikipedia’s control over the information that we, as the common people, assume as infallible fact and without error.

 This Orwellian nightmare might seem like fiction but the regulation of facts and truth have, and still, occur throughout the real and virtual world. The manipulation of reality occurs when a power is, or has the feeling of, being threatened and potentially could loose power or credibility. Wikipedia’s administrators routinely edit, omit, and delete facts that doesn’t fit with their philosophy “NPOV”. NPOV is “doublespeak” for neutral points of view. If, for example, an administrator finds work that he/she finds to be biased or offensive, he/she can have that work deleted. NPOV is “Absolute and non-negotionable”. So what is stopping administrators from becoming corrupt from power? Apparently nothing. Controversy erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after an editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power. Revealed after a high ranking administrator called “Durova” used it in attempt to enforce the ban of an experienced editor, this list is used to push the agenda of the upper class of Wikipedia and silence the voices of editors. Durova claimed that he ( the user blocked ) was trying to gain the community's trust and destroy it from within.

 A way for high ranking administrators delete entries is through “WP:OFFICE”. The "WP:OFFICE" policy was created as a means to immediately and unilaterally protect, censor, or delete any Wikipedia article without going through established channels or acquiring community support to do so. Normally an administrator has to go through the Wikipedia bureaucracy in order to delete, but if you belong to the “inner elite” of the Wiki, the WP:OFFICE bypasses all of that. Essentially, WP:OFFICE can be interpreted as "Censored for reasons we cannot reveal.” That doesn’t sound very NPOV.

 Like anybody that has power, they are always afraid to lose it. Wiki-paranoia. That is the purpose of administrative editing, if an article upsets the philosophy or the status - quo: questions arise. The wiki-government will not tolerate anything that would undermine Wikipedia. However, most edits that are deemed questionable are quickly removed. Edits are done by the Wikipedian “secret police” calling themselves the “recent changes patrol.” These officers, using special software designed for counter vandalism, edit materials they deem to be “unfit” for the public. Many officers, shockingly, are not technically a part of the Wikipedia main party…they are average joe’s like you and me. This does not seem like normal brain activity to me. These individuals volunteer their time and edit information on purpose. This could be a biased editor, protecting his or her work from other edits. Another theory is that many hardcore Wikipedians could be in a “brainwashed” state. A sort of “wiki-cult.” Some editing thousands of articles, these editors could be editing for their own personal ego, or they could be answering from a higher power.

 Is seeing believing? Or is believing seeing? Do you see the truth, so you believe it? Or do you believe the truth, and as a result it exists? When you read an online encyclopedia such as Wikipedia, do you entirely trust its authenticity despite it being user generated content? Wikipedia is anarcho-reality. Every individual has as much say in what is reality as the next person. While it may be a good idea for some individualists, a problem in reality is that some people, especially those in power, have different views of the same thing. Its like looking at the same picture from different angles, except one of the viewers has the ability to silence the other and only let himself speak. It is understandable why such a conspiracy exists, there have always been people in power willing to sacrifice truth for philosophy. Larry Sanger, ex-editor in chief for Wikipedia, resigned because of a “certain poisonous social or political atmosphere” in the project. Take China for an example of suppression of thought: manipulating Google because the state is unwilling to let the truth be known to their citizens. And they will never know, because in their reality, Tiananmen is just a place on a map. Un-reality. It's this view that Stephen Colbert was able to scoff at. "Wikiality": reality is what the wiki says it is. Wikipedia has the ability to be dangerous. Is there a conspiracy to influence public opinion? In reality we may never know.